Matapalo

People who follow me on this platform know that I love plants, cacti, and succulents. In general, I am interested in nature, and everything green in creation. I am always investigating, and researching plants. In the last few days, I got my hands on a very interesting article about a peculiar plant or rather a tree that I would like to share with you.

Today I will tell you about the plant called Matapalo. It is a tree whose natural habitat is in the rainforest. It can be seen in the jungle of Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Its seed is deposited in the top of a leafy tree, it is left there by a bird or carried by the wind. In the top of the tree where it is deposited is where the seed germinates and uses the tree as a support. As it grows, it descends to the ground, developing long aerial roots that wrap around the tree where it rests. Little by little, it grows and strangles the tree. After a while, they strangle the tree until it dries out completely and the supporting tree dies.

According to the article, I am reading, the Matapalo is an epiphyte plant. According to wikipedia, it refers to "any plant that grows on another plant or object using it only as a support". But the Matapalo is an epiphyte plant only when it is small because as it grows it ends up strangling the tree that serves as its host.

The Matapalo develops in such a way that it can reach a height of 30 meters, becoming confused with the foliage of the host tree, it is not detected with the naked eye, because it seems as if the branches were of the supporting tree, but people who work in gardening know that this type of plant represents a mortal danger to the trees, if it is not treated in time by cutting those branches it can end the life of the entire tree.

Reading about this plant, I started to think about what this plant would be like, taking it to the extreme of being a person. On some occasions it can happen to have in our home a person with the characteristics of being an epiphyte plant, or even worse, to be a Matapalo plant.

On some occasion, we have had to shake hands with a person who comes in need of our help. At first, we shake that person's hand and we host it in our home, we know that it will be like an "orchid or a bromeliad" which are very common epiphyte plants in our homes, they are a beauty of nature. We know that they feed on another plant but they do not harm it and they usually bring beauty with their flowers. So are some people that we host in our home for a while, we know that they will not bring anything to stay in our home but their presence makes us good company.

But there is another type of person that with time strangle us, little by little they take away the peace in our home. They are creators of conflicts, manipulative people by essence. It is impossible to have a peaceful atmosphere at home. In the beginning, in their first days at home, they were like epiphytic plants, orchids or bromeliads, but as time goes by, they become toxic, they transform themselves into "matapalo" plants, they suffocate, strangle us, they take away the peace in the home.

Just as the tree killer, when a gardener finds it growing on a tree, he knows that he has to cut that branch because otherwise it will kill everything, so we have to understand that our life, that our home must be "pruned". It must be worked to have tranquility and harmony among all those who live in that home, that everything that is done is good. Otherwise, the toxic situation must be put to an end.

What would you do in this case, I look forward to reading your comment.

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Picture from: http://www.treslagunas.com.mx/article/40#